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IRVING (CBSDFW.COM) – As thousands of kids begin their State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness or STAAR tests across North Texas this week, an Irving mother is taking a stand against the standardized tests… and she’s not alone

The STAAR tests are used to determine a student’s proficiency. Mother Lateresa Christian talked with CBS 11 News Monday and said her child is fine, but the test isn’t. She said her daughter loves school and excels academically.

Christian said the standardized test requirement has her 11-year-old daughter torn. “For the past month she comes home and tells me, ‘All I’ve been doing is learning this test. I’m frustrated.’”

Frustration has apparently spread among a number of Texas families. There is a page on Facebook dedicated as a sounding board for parents pulling their kids from classrooms before they take STAAR exams — the required assessments of academic readiness.

In Waco, the parents of several youngsters created a video anthem, building a chorus of complaints against the state’s student testing system.

Christian claims the STAAR test violates her moral beliefs, based on the stress it causes her child. She’ll use a section of the Education Code that offers religion or moral beliefs as an exemption, to keep her daughter out of Thomas Haley Elementary in Irving this week — STAAR exam week.

“I believe this hinders my child. It hinders her socioeconomic development, her creative learnedness,” Christian said. “Because the only thing teachers are concerned with is passing this test.”

Schools could hold students from grade promotion if they don’t take or pass state tests.
Christian has now joined other parents to challenge the high stakes exams.

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) issued the following statement:

“A student is not entitled to remove the parents child from a class or other school activities to avoid a test or prevent the child from taking a subject for an entire semester.”